Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Student are hounded
by police. Peaceful protesters are thrown in jail for throwing eggs. Meanwhile,
a wanted criminal with a violent past offers to mobilize his followers to
protect a highly unpopular, and increasingly authoritarian, president

There was a time
during Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) first
administration where it was easier, even for critics like this author, to give
it the benefit of the doubt, when we could believe that the government could be
trusted with working for, and protecting, the nation’s interest. Since the
beginning of his second (and thankfully last) term, trend lines — from a
hardening of government policies, and an increasingly authoritarian reaction to
dissent amid very low popular support — have made it nearly impossible to
continue doing so. Recent developments should dispel any notion that the Ma
cabinet can continue unchecked.

One of the most
worrying events in the past six months has been the return to Taiwan of the
wanted fugitive Chang An-le (張安樂), also
known as “White Wolf,” whose leadership of the Bamboo United criminal syndicate
forced him to flee Taiwan in 1996. Immediately after being released on NT$1
million bail on the day of his return to Taiwan, Chang embarked on a campaign
to promote his “peaceful unification” ideology through TV appearances and the
opening of a campaign office in, of all places, Tainan. I have written
extensively about the significance of his return to Taiwan and of the
government failing to keep him busy preparing his defense in court, and will
not repeat what I have said here.

But one thing
bears repeating: As I pointed out soon after his return, Chang’s return to
Taiwan creates a high likelihood that intimidation and violence will once again
be part of Taiwan’s politics. Although Chang has been portrayed as a former, if
not “reformed,” gangster-turned-politician, there is every indication that the
man, who served prison time in the U.S. for drug trafficking and is believed to
have played a role in the 1984 assassination of Henry Liu (劉宜良) in California, remains involved in
criminal activities. Panelists who had the misfortune of appearing on TV talk
shows with him earlier this summer could not help but notice Chang’s entourage
of “friends,” which some were not shy of describing as “bodyguards” or “thugs.”
This author ran into the White Wolf just last week at a bar very popular with
foreign crowds in Taipei. In fact, Chang sat at the very next table, and was
accompanied by a dozen bodyguards who positioned themselves at various
strategic points to create a virtual box round their leader.

Now that very
same Chang, who at the weekend said that Taiwanese were downright stupid for
refusing to acknowledge that they are Chinese, showed his cards on Monday by
revealing that he planned to create an “action alliance” to protect the highly
unpopular President Ma ahead of a planned protest in Taichung on Nov. 10, when
the KMT holds its long-delayed party congress. According to some reports, Chang
said he would mobilize as many as 2,000 of his followers to counter protesters
at the venue and ensure Ma’s safety amid a campaign to shadow the president
and, at its most “violent,” lob shoes at him. Chang further singled out laid-off
workers who have led a series of protest against the administration in recent
months and who are expected to spearhead the Nov. 10 demonstrations.

Most
conveniently, by not prosecuting Chang, the Ma government has now found an ally
who is willing to ensure his safety — in other words, in addition to police,
gangsters — not simple gangsters, but gangsters that are very much Beijing’s
extension in Taiwan — will now play a role in shielding Ma from a public that
has had enough of his poor governance and who, as citizens of a democracy, have
every right to protest. Such role for the underworld in politics hadn’t been
seen in Taiwan since the early 1990s, before president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) launched a nationwide crackdown on
organized crime. While still a fugitive in China, Chang was reportedly behind
the dispatch of thugs to protest against the Dalai Lama during a visit to
Taiwan in 2009 and to pick up his hateful ally Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport
after the latter, an official at Taiwan’s representative office in Toronto, was
recalled (and then fired) over a controversy surrounding the publication of
several of his anti-Taiwan articles under a pen name. Now that he is back in
Taiwan, the threat that Chang represents for society is all the more worrying. Already,
some prominent student leaders such as the charismatic Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) have been warned that criminal
organizations were on them. We can only speculate as to how his followers will
behave when they encounter protesters in Taichung or at any other venue. Will
they simply seek to intimidate, or will they use force against the protesting
youth and the academics and lawyers who support them, the journalists who
gather to cover the events? How will police react — if it reacts at all? And
what does this presage for the future, for the safety of anyone who opposes Ma
or the KMT or “peaceful unification”?

Unless the
National Police Administration quickly intervenes and prevents Chang’s
followers from involving themselves, we will have no alternative but to
conclude that Ma, who now has every reason to fear the public, is resorting to
gangster politics to maintain his grip on power, the same kind of thing that
the KMT did well before it was expelled from China in 1949. This speaks volumes
about the current state of Taiwan’s democracy. Surely all of this isn’t about
Chang’s freedom of expression, which might very well be the administration’s
stated reason for its inaction!

All of this
occurs against a backdrop in which police and law enforcement are cracking down
hard on protesters. While wanted criminals roam free and threaten society, Lin
Tzu-wen (林子文) and Taoyuan County Confederation of
Trade Unions chairman Mao Chen-fei (毛振飛, pictured above), two men involved in the protest by the
aforementioned group of laid-off factory workers will on Nov. 1 begin serving 20-day
and 50-day prison sentences for breaking the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) during a protest in front of the
Presidential Office in October 2012. Their crime? Throwing eggs. The timing of
their detention (the two refused to pay the fine) is also noteworthy, as it
means they will not be able to participate at the Nov. 10 protest. Many others
in recent months have been charged with obstruction of justice, or endangering
public safety, for similarly minor “crimes” — misdemeanor, in fact — for
throwing eggs, shoes, affixing stickers at various venues, or spray-painting
government buildings. In many cases, the sentences have been as heavy as those
imposed on armed individuals fleeing from the authorities in a stolen car. In
other words, and as a number of lawyer friends have told me, the courts have
been disproportionate in the sentences issued against protesters who, unlike
what the KMT and some pan-blue media have averred, have been overwhelmingly
peaceful.

Also last week,
reports emerged that students who were conducting surveys of residents in
Miaoli — a county at the very center of various protests against forced
evictions and government-sanctioned demolitions that led to the death,
ostensibly by suicide, of one of the residents last month — were being shadowed
by camcorder-toting police officers. While it is true that some of the students
involved in the door-to-door survey have been involved in the protests against
county commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻)
and Cabinet officials, nothing justifies hounding them as if they were
criminals. It is known, though, that the local police force, by and large,
serves as Liu’s personal force.

We now have a
situation where students are intimidated by police and peaceful protesters
thrown in jail, while wanted criminals with a violent past are free to do as they
please, to run businesses, and to enter politics. None of this has yet to
capture the attention of people abroad, who remain busy showering Ma with
praise for creating a very false peace in the Taiwan Strait. Unless we start
seeing external pressure on the government to mend its ways and change course,
the recent trends mentioned above bode extremely ill for the future of Taiwan
as a free, distinct, and democratic society. (Photo by the author)